Part 35 (2/2)

1. What were the chief causes of aggregation of people?

2. Are there evidences of groups without the beginning of social organization?

3. What is the relation of the individual to society?

4. The basis of national groups.

5. Factors in the progress of the human race.

6. Growth of religious toleration in the world.

7. Name ten ”American inst.i.tutions” that should be perpetuated.

8. Race and democracy.

9. What per cent of the voters of your town take a vital interest in government?

10. The growth of democratic ideas in Europe. In Asia.

11. Study the welfare organizations in your town, comparing objects and results.

12. The trend of population from country to city and its influence on social organization.

13. Explain why people follow the fas.h.i.+ons.

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CHAPTER XXIX

THE EVOLUTION OF SCIENCE

_Science Is an Att.i.tude of Mind Toward Life_.--As usually defined, science represents a cla.s.sified body of knowledge logically arranged with the purpose of arriving at definite principles or truths by processes of investigation and comparison. But the largest part of science is found in its method of approaching the truth as compared with religion, philosophy, or disconnected knowledge obtained by casual observation. In many ways it is in strong contrast with speculative philosophy and with dogmatic theology, both of which lack sufficient data for scientific development. The former has a tendency to interpret what is a.s.sumed to have already been established. With the latter the laboratory of investigation of truth has been closed. The laboratory of science is always open.

While scientists work with hypotheses, use the imagination, and even become dogmatic in their a.s.sertions, the degree of certainty is always tested in the laboratory. If a truth is discovered to-day, it must be verified in the laboratory or shown to be incorrect or only a partial truth. Science has been built up on the basis of the inquiry into nature's processes. It is all the time inquiring: ”What do we find under the microscope, through the telescope, in the chemical and physical reactions, in the examination of the earth and its products, in the observation of the functions of animals and plants, or in the structure of the brain of man and the laws of his mental functioning?”

If it establishes an hypothesis as a means of procedure, it must be determined true or abandoned. If the imagination ventures to be far-seeing, observation, experimentation, and the discovery of fact must all come to its support before it can be called scientific.

_Scientific Methods_.--We have already referred to the turning of the minds of the Greeks from the power of the G.o.ds to {459} a look into nature's processes. We have seen how they lacked a scientific method and also scientific data sufficient to verify their a.s.sumptions. We have observed how, while they took a great step forward, their conclusions were lost in the Dark Ages and in the early mediaeval period, and how they were brought to light in the later medieval period and helped to form the scholastic philosophy and to stimulate free inquiry, and how the weakness of all systems was manifested in all these periods of human life by failure to use the simple process of observing the facts of nature, getting them and cla.s.sifying them so as to demonstrate truth. It will not be possible to recount in this chapter a full description of the development of science and scientific thought. Not more can be done than to mention the turning-points in its development and expansion.

Though other influences of minor importance might be mentioned, it is well to note that Roger Bacon (1214-1294) stands out prominently as the first philosopher of the mediaeval period who turned his att.i.tude of mind earnestly toward nature. It is true that he was not free from the taint of dogmatic theology and scholastic philosophy which were so strongly prevailing at the time, but he advocated the discovery of truth by observation and experiment, which was a bold a.s.sumption at that time. He established as one of his main principles that experimental science ”investigates the secrets of nature by its own competency and out of its own qualities, irrespective of any connection with the other sciences.” Thus he did not universalize his method as applicable to all sciences.

Doubtless Roger Bacon received his inspiration from the Greek and Arabian scientists with whom he was familiar. It is interesting that, following the lines of observation and discovery in a very primitive way, he let his imagination run on into the future, predicting many things that have happened already. Thus he says: ”Machines for navigation are possible without rowers, like great s.h.i.+ps suited to river or ocean, going with greater velocity than if they were full of rowers; likewise {460} wagons may be moved _c.u.m impetu inaestimabili_, as we deem the chariots of antiquity to have been. And there may be flying-machines, so made that a man may sit in the middle of the machine and direct it by some device; and again, machines for raising great weights.”[1]

In continuity with the ideas of Roger Bacon, Francis Bacon (1561-1626) gave a cla.s.sification of human learning and laid the real foundation on which the superstructure of science has been built. Between the two lives much had been done by Copernicus, who taught that the earth was not the centre of the universe, and that it revolved on its axis from west to east. This gave the traditions of fourteen centuries a severe jolt, and laid the foundation for the development of the heliocentric system of astronomy. Bacon's cla.s.sification of all knowledge showed the relations.h.i.+p of the branches to a comprehensive whole. His fundamental theory was that nature was controlled and modified by man.

He recognized the influence of natural philosophy, but insisted that the ”history mechanical” was a strong support to it.

His usefulness seems to have been in the presentation of a wide range of knowledge distinctly connected, the demonstration of the utility of knowledge, and the suggestion of unsolved problems which should be investigated by observation and experiment. Without giving his complete cla.s.sification of human learning, it may be well to state his most interesting cla.s.sification of physical science to show the middle ground which he occupied between mediaeval thought and our modern conception of science. This cla.s.sification is as follows:

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